


You Should’ve Been, I Could Have Been A Better Son

by TurntechLoveThis (angelcult)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Based on a My Chemical Romance Song, F/M, Gen, Internalized Transphobia, Misunderstandings, Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:41:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26159677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelcult/pseuds/TurntechLoveThis
Summary: June hasn’t spoken with her dad since coming out, and now she’s left to wonder if she’s lost him.
Relationships: John Egbert/Dave Strider, June Egbert/Dave Strider
Comments: 3
Kudos: 37





	You Should’ve Been, I Could Have Been A Better Son

**Author's Note:**

> This is so much shorter than I wanted it to be but I didn’t know how to make it any longer.

Some part of June thinks her father hates her, for turning out like this. 

For being like  _ this.  _

He always wanted a son, instead he has a daughter, a daughter who’s a bit taller than other girls and doesn’t like to smile because her teeth aren’t straight like a military cemetery, a daughter who.. presented as a boy for sixteen years of her damn life. 

She’s pretty sure her dad hates her. 

She could have been better, she could have been  _ better,  _ but she wasn’t, she was taken by lipstick and skirts and the fact that her body didn’t have the feminine curve seen in every model or magazine. 

Dave says she’s beautiful, he tells her how pretty she is with this dazed sort of smile on his face, with these hazy eyes, like her beauty is drugging him up.

June wishes her father loved her, even if she loves that Dave does. 

She loves that he loves  _ her.  _

But dinner feels stilted as of late, and her father doesn’t smile at her as much as he used to, back when she was pretending to be something she wasn’t.

Now, she feels like pretending was the only thing holding her together. 

She feels like she killed his son, like she murdered him in cold blood by telling the truth, maybe she should have kept lying.

Her mother.. wouldn’t have wanted  _ this  _ broken mess for a child, and June is certain that her father doesn’t either.

So, dinner is quiet.

The house is tense.

It’s a balancing act.

She could have been a better son, if only to make up for the fact that she’s a  _ terrible, a fucking abhorrent excuse  _ for a daughter.

June doesn’t repeat the words in her mirror like a mantra, her brain supplies them to her like a broken record day in and day out. 

_ She isn’t enough.  _

Another dinner, Dad made her favorite, she can’t remember the last time he made kimchi stew, but he made too much, there’ll be leftovers for days.

“June?”

She looks up and her dad’s eyes are soft on her, apologetic and pained. 

She’s hurting him, he can’t even look at her without remembering what she was pretending to be.

“Yeah, Dad?”

He swallows, puts his utensils down and sits up straight, rolls his shoulders back. He’s uncomfortable, she can see it, she makes him  _ uncomfortable.  _

“I’m sorry.”

What?

“What?” She repeats aloud, brow furrowed as she stopped what she was doing and placed her hands in her lap.

“I’m sorry for.. being so cold with you. It’s taken some adjusting, everything has taken some  _ adjusting  _ but I should have realized that..” He pauses, June’s never seen her father at such a loss for words.

“That what you didn’t need was space, but my support and time and understanding.”

What?

What the fuck, what the fuck, what?

“Dad?”

“I’m sorry that I haven’t been there for you. You’ve needed me and I’ve.. abandoned you.” He explains and he sniffs, and his eyes are starting to gloss over. 

There’s so much emotion swirling in them, so much uncertainty and regret and sadness and pain. 

_ So much.  _

“I’m so sorry, June, never think for a second that I.. have not loved you.”

It’s all she’s wanted to hear for weeks, that her father cares, and it hurts to think that he  _ had  _ abandoned her, she was scared that maybe, just maybe, she had it coming? She’d taken his son so it was only fair that in retaliation, he’d take her father. 

Except.

There never was a son.

She played dress-up when she was three, she wore lipgloss when she was twelve, she.. was  _ always  _ June.

How come she had never realized until now?

You can’t kill what was never there.

“Dad.. it’s.. I missed you.” She can’t stop herself from breaking down, she wishes she could. “I thought, I thought that maybe? Maybe if I’d been a better son, things would be different? Or better? But I wasn’t-not really, I didn’t- I missed you.” She repeats and suddenly he’s wrapping her up in his arms, squeezing him and kissing her forehead, soothing a hand up and down her back.

“No, honey, no,” Dad rocks her back and forth, kisses the top of her head again and then lets her go to crouch down in front of her chair and then he smiles.

A real, genuine smile.

It’s sad, pained, and full of regret (just like his eyes) but it’s  _ real. _

“I forgive you.” June says softly, because she does, because it’s easier to know the truth, that her father doesn’t hate her or that he’s some transphobe in disguise.

Things aren’t perfect, they can’t be, both of them have tears on their faces and their noses are red, but it will be. 

June doesn’t need to be a better ‘son’, she’s always been the perfect daughter and she can’t.. pretend, not after this, never again. 


End file.
